13/05/05 It's A Kind Of Magic

Nursing a rather nasty hangover, I remembered that I'd committed to doing a spot of "magic" (I use the term very loosely), at a party in South Queensferry which had been organised as a welcome to Linda who was across from Germany.
It was great to see Linda and her kids. She sang a few haunting traditional songs, and probably edged out the crass magician in the clapometer ratings.
We had a resident electronic organist playing throughout the evening. His piece of resistance was an epic version of the "Duelling Banjos" theme from the film "Deliverance". I've never heard anything like it in me life!
I managed to mesmerise a packed audience with my legendary disappearing handkerchief trick, (noted for not appearing on Channel 4's recent "100 Greatest Magic Tricks"). I then followed this up by magicking a card (chosen by a randomly selected member of the audience) out of the pack onstage and into Max's top pocket as he sat in the audience. I managed to locate the card by waving about a magic wand and using it as a detector to lead me to the location of the magicked card.
A couple of the kids there spent a few minutes trying to dismantle the magic wand as they were convinced there was some kind of homing device located in it.
I explained to them at length that there wasn't, and that they had witnessed magic in it's purest form, and that there was no rational explanation available regarding what they had been privileged to witness. I just couldn't convince them that there wasn't some kind of obvious trick going on here. They just weren't having it. Well I don't know, kids these days, really!
We nicked back into town and had a couple of late pints at the slightly bizarre Argus Hotel bar in Edinburgh. They have a big overhead fan on the ceiling which has the curious effect of pushing the cigarette smoke back down amongst the assembled drinkers. Very clever. Also, the central heating is set to the "Phew, I'm about to pass out with heat exhaustion" setting.
I don't complain though, as the hotel is 50m away from the front door of my flat. Furthermore it was my choice to go there. On the plus side, you can always get a seat there (quelle surprise), and you can hear people talking (usually a positive).